Distinct
by Lady Drama
Summary: Their first conversation takes place in the Forbidden Forest. It's quite ironic, really. ::A collection of oneshots featuring Rose Weasley and Scorpius Malfoy::
1. Introduction

**Disclaimer**_**:**__ I do not own Harry Potter_

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><p>Rose Weasley stomped through the Forbidden Forest, her feet making loud squelching sounds against the muddy ground. Her Dragon-hide boots were caked with the filthy substance and it had cunningly made its way across her tattered old jeans and down her shirt as well. The only soil-free zone of her body was her face, but since it was covered with sweat instead, this gave her scant pleasure.<p>

Her short red hair was swept back neatly by a black band that she had borrowed from Alicia Williams, one of her roommates. Her expression was one of great determination and her nose was scrunched up in a way that her father, Ron Weasley would instantly recognise as dangerous. Rose Weasley was on a rampage.

She could handle being teased by her cousins about being the most un-Weasley-ish person in the clan, could even handle her father's slightly worried enquiries as to whether she was really enjoying Hogwarts. Like her Mum had said, they were just boys. Those insignificant yet irritating creatures that were necessary for populating the planet with their stinky socks. (The only exception to this rule that Rose had so far encountered was Simon Chang. But he was an entirely different matter all together. A mouth-watering matter with shiny black hair and a dimple that accompanied the bright smiles he'd been sending in her direction lately.)

Rose liked her books. She was happy in the almost illusory world of the Hogwarts library, where there was perfect silence and stacks of knowledge. When she picked up a book, the words seemed to float off the page and dance around her eyes, delighting her. The feel of the solid, heavy volumes in her arms was akin to ecstasy. And above all was the delightful fact that she was _learning_.

She was not the first Weasley Ravenclaw, but she was definitely unique. Many people saw her as similar to her Uncle Percy but her family saw their differences clearly. Percy had immersed himself in books for a reason. For Rose, the books were the reason.

But when her idol, her North Star, her own brilliant Mum suggested that maybe Rose was losing herself too far in books alone... Well, that was the outside of enough. Rose decided to prove, for once and for all, that she was by no means the dullest Weasley ever. (That title, in her opinion, belonged to her cousin Molly.)

But there remained the slight problem of precisely what she should do. She badly wanted to ask career troublemakers Fred and James for advice but her own stubborn pride stopped her. She considered Albus, who also possessed a streak of mischievousness although he didn't display it nearly as often or in as grandiose a manner as his brother. He was also closer to her age, and a lot less likely to tell anyone that she had gone to him for advice. But getting him alone was a difficult task. She couldn't just walk up to him and ask him in front of everyone. And detaching him from his friend/almost brother, Scorpius proved next to impossible. However it also turned out to be unnecessary.

Hanging close enough to them to eavesdrop, with her face concealed behind a thick book, had given her rewards beyond her wildest expectations. It seemed that the two were planning to retrieve the old Ford Anglia that had once belonged to her grandfather and sending it to him for his birthday the following week. They had chosen Saturday to venture into the Forest and so Rose had decided to outsmart them by going there on Friday and taking the car herself.

Unfortunately, the car itself was no where in sight and even though she wasn't quite ready to admit it, Rose Weasley was utterly lost.

"Weasley?"

Rose bit back the urge to laugh like a loon. Of all the people who could have found her in this pathetic state, it seemed almost fitting that the Fates would pick Scorpius Malfoy.

"Malfoy," she almost growled.

He jumped off the tree he'd been sitting on. (One of its branches tried to hold him back but he gently shook it off and it bent to help him slide instead. The second he got off, the tree turned into a wood nymph, who blushed and ran away. Typical. As lousily typical as the fact that his clothes weren't even wrinkled and he didn't have a singly blonde hair out of place.)

He surveyed her with frank curiousity. "What's in the bag?" he asked, nodding towards the big black satchel hanging from her shoulder.

She didn't see the point in trying to deny what she was doing so she handed him the bag and sat down with a huff. He opened it and swore softly when he saw the contents.

"These items are from our checklist," he stated flatly. "The one Al and I drew up for getting that car out of here."

She nodded. "Is that what you're here for?"

"No. I'm just verifying that this is the right area because I have a free period. You know, I told Al that was you behind that old copy of _Terrible Transfigurations_. He thought I was joking."

"Well, I suppose I am the most boring Weasley ever," she replied bitterly.

Scorpius looked alarmed. "You aren't going to start crying, are you?"

"No."

"Good." He heaved a sigh of relief. "Eloise seems to do that a lot these days."

She frowned, trying to remember who Eloise was and how she was related to the boy standing in front of her. Scorpius saw her confusion and said, "My girlfriend. You need to get out of your books a little, Weasley."

His words were so reminiscent of her mother's that Rose wanted to pick up the nearest stone and fling it at his head. She bent down and picked up a knuckle sized grey stone. "I know."

Scorpius regarded the stone warily. "Are you going to hit me with that?"

"Maybe. I haven't really decided yet. So you were saying something about Eloise being a human hosepipe?"

"Yeah, she never shuts up these days. I generally try to shut her up with snogging. You know, you're a strange girl."

"Maybe if you actually tried listening to whatever's bothering her, it would help. And I am not strange."

"You're being sarcastic with the advice there, aren't you? And yes, you are a barmy bird."

"I think you're both mad," said Albus, entering the clearing in which they were standing and shaking a stray leaf out of his hair.

"Oy! Thanks, _mate_."

"You had two totally distinct conversations going on at the same time. St. Mungo's Loony Ward was made for people like you."

"Is eavesdropping some kind of genetic thing?" asked Scorpius.

Albus's fist shot out to punch his smirking face but Scorpius ducked in time and within seconds, the two of them were locked in a tussle. Suddenly, two grey rocks hit them both on the head and they sprang back.

"For being idiots," said Rose primly.

As the three walked away from the Forest, bickering and laughing, the first tendrils of a bond connected them.

(Although Scorpius and Rose's habit of talking about two completely different things in a single breath never ceased to irritate Albus, Rose wished the boys would choke rather than eat with all the grace of drunken hippopotami and Scorpius never stopped yelling 'Fire!' whenever Albus or Rose brushed their hair.)

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><p><em>AN: I'm thinking about turning this into a collection of RoseScorpius oneshots. Anyone interested?<em>


	2. Identity Crisis

**AN:** _Thank you for all your encouraging reviews!_

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><p>"Thank God you inherited your mother's brains."<p>

Rose looked up from the book she was perusing, her brows drawn together into a small frown. Scorpius pulled a seat in front of her table. The wood scraped across the floor noisily and Madam Pince paused in her book sorting to glower in their direction.

"What?"

"That's what your father said to you that day at the station, isn't it? Just before our first year started?"

Rose shrugged.

"So why didn't you?" he persisted. "While you're well above average you're not at the top of our year, nor do you compete with me."

"I'm not my mother."

"Explain." He leaned back, rocking his chair.

"Why do you want to know?"

Scorpius gave her a look that she couldn't quite decipher. "I just do."

Rose kept her book down carefully, inserting a bright purple bookmark into it. Scorpius watched her impatiently. "Well?"

"I suppose I just don't have Mum's ambition. I like learning more than receiving full marks. For me, memorising the concept is never enough. I don't just want to turn the teapot into a gerbil; I want to know precisely how I did it, why that particular movement of my wand generated that particular result. And I'm not particularly worried about what job I'll do. I get my relaxed attitude from my father, I guess. He never worried much about stuff like this either. Then again, he was a little busy when he was around our age, trying to hunt down a Dark Lord."

A shadow fell across the table. "Mr. Malfoy," said Madam Pince nastily, looming over their table like an overgrown vulture. "Sit _still_."

Scorpius quickly bought all the four legs of his chair back on the ground. After glaring at him for a full minute, the librarian left.

He crushed something in his hand and said, "I didn't know that, Rose."

"Why did you want to?"

He laughed. "The dangers of becoming friends with a Ravenclaw."

Rose blinked. That was news to her. "We're friends?"

"Aren't we?" asked Scorpius quizzically.

"I suppose we could be."

"Fine then. Rose Weasley, will you please be my mate?"

"Don't be absurd," she replied, smiling faintly. "But why did you want to know?"

"Isn't persistence more of a Gryffindor trait?"

"Stop dodging my question."

"My father wrote to me," he said, showing the slight crumpled piece of paper lying on his palm. "He doesn't do that often."

"What did he say?"

"He wanted to know if Hermione Granger's daughter got more OWLs than I did." Scorpius began to tap his foot against the floor.

"How many did you get?"

"Eight."

"All but one," Rose commented. "Which one did you miss?"

"Astronomy. I try but all of them look like Cassiopeia to me."

"Why Cassiopeia?"

"Because it's the one that's supposed to be just a weirdly shaped cluster of stars," he said flatly. He started tapping his fingers on the table.

"So what are you planning to do after Hogwarts?"

"Family business," he said, as if the words left a bitter taste in his mouth. He stopped fidgeting and looked at her coolly. Rose realised that she had taken the conversation somewhere he didn't want it to go and wondered if he regretted starting it.

Scorpius began to rise from his chair and before she could help herself Rose said, "Don't go." She knew she sounded like a love-sick third year, but her instincts told her that it was what he needed to hear.

He sat down again, slowly. A slow smile spread across his face. "You're a very strange mate."

"Strange?" she questioned, a little offended.

"Yeah, you talk about studies and careers and yet you say you aren't interested in them. You make me say shit I don't normally talk about because you're so easy to talk to but you stutter around every seventh word. So how many OWLs did you get anyway?"

She accepted his swift change of topic without a blink. "Six."

"What did you miss?"

"Nothing. I enjoyed every subject."

"Even History of Magic?"

"Alright, maybe Binns wasn't all that fun," admitted Rose, "but some of the historical books in the library can be fascinating. You should give them a try."

He gave a loud, theatrical yawn and said, "Maybe while rolling over in my grave."

Elise Nott entered the library, holding a copy of Transfiguration Today. Scorpius raked a hand through his already dishevelled blonde hair. "Hey, Elise."

She seemed surprised by his company but said, "Scorpius. You missed dinner today."

"Detention," he said, with a proud grin.

Elise and Rose shared a long-suffering look. _Boys_. Rose nodded towards the magazine. "Preparing for McGonagall's test?"

"I've crammed so much that my head feels like it's about to burst. I'm turning this in so that I don't drive myself batty," she declared.

Rose beckoned her forward and said whispered conspiringly, "You know, she always makes fifth years transfigure clocks for their first test."

Elise's mouth fell open. "No!"

"It's true," Scorpius interrupted. "Been there, done that."

She banged the magazine on his head. "And you couldn't have told me that yesterday, I suppose?" Before Scorpius could reply, Elise stormed off. She went up to Madam Pince and started arguing with her.

"Sorry," said Rose.

Scorpius snorted. "What for? You gave me a very good reason for a make-up snog. It might even turn into a make-out snog."

Rose rolled her eyes and stood up. "I think I should get going too." She glanced at her watch. "It's almost time for curfew."

"And Agrippa forbid you be caught out of bed after-hours," he said in mock-horror. Rose laughed; something she didn't do very often. She was a naturally serious person and while she was mostly content, loud laughter wasn't really her thing.

Scorpius felt extremely pleased with himself, although he couldn't quite figure out why. She gathered her books and turned to walk away. Suddenly, she stopped and said softly, "Scorpius?"

"Yeah, Rose?"

"I'm not Hermione Granger and you're not Draco Malfoy."

Usually he would have made a witty remark like, "Having an identity crisis?" but today he was speechless. Maybe it was because his throat suddenly seemed to have a massive boulder stuck in it.

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><p><em>Hope you enjoyed! Review please?<em>


	3. A Peacock Quill

**Disclaimer:** _I do not own the Harry Potter series._

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><p>Rose Weasley was chewing the tip of her quill again.<p>

There was absolutely nothing unusual in this. It was simply a part of her thinking process (along with drinking gallons of the foulest smelling herbal teas which she claimed contained oxidants and Hugo claimed contained sewage). Al had once remarked that Rose had more feathers in her stomach than your average owl. It was the way the sun rose in the east and the earth revolved around the sun: normal.

What was definitely abnormal was the fact that Scorpius just couldn't seem to look away. It was mad, as he realized around the thirteenth time he caught himself staring at her, to find a girl abusing plumage attractive. But there was just something that he couldn't quite define in the way she held that ridiculous quill and kept on nibbling on its end that fascinated him. He was staring at the quill, not her, he told himself. It was a massive, ostentatious peacock quill and for the first few days, everyone had given Rose mystified looks when they saw it. It just didn't fit with her reputation as the shyest Weasley.

He was punished for not paying attention to the game of Exploding Snap that he had been playing with Ian Finnegan and Al, when Al's cards rose up and singed his brows.

"Bloody hell! That's the highest I've ever seen these old cards go," said Ian, impressed.

Al grinned and replied, "That's because I'm playing with the lousiest Snap player in the world."

Before Scorpius could voice an indignant retort defending his Snapper skills, a tall blonde girl walked by and Al's automatically dropped his cards to sweep his hair back.

Ian, oblivious to Al's reaction to the girl's presence, cheerfully called, "Hey, Clara, want to play?"

Her brown eyes surveyed their group and hardened when they landed on Al's hopeful face. "No thanks, Ian," she said haughtily and retreated to the girls' dorms.

Ian frowned, puzzled. "She's not usually like that," he assured the other two. "Must be having a bad day or something."

"Or something," Scorpius agreed, looking at Al's scowling face as his friend threw his cards on the table and announced that he had a Potions essay due the next day.

"I thought you were going to finish it on the breakfast table tomorrow."

Al's hands balled up into fists. Scorpius was aware of Rose's alarmed eyes on them and he turned back long enough to send her a reassuring smile. It was also long enough for Al's fist to catch him unawares on his jaw. Scorpius spun back and retaliated with blow to his stomach. Al stepped back a pace and glared at him, but a small smile was starting to break through.

He aimed a good kick at Scorpius' shins and the other boy fell down shouting, "Dirty play!" However, he stuck his leg out and tripped Al as soon as he hit the carpeted floor and that would have been the start of the 136th fistfight between the two had a Prefect not interrupted them.

"What – do – you – think – you're – doing?" demanded the bossy brown haired girl, reminding Al forcibly of his Aunt Hermione.

Behind them, Ian was laughing so much that he'd fallen off the armchair and several people nearby were chuckling as well. Rose, Scorpius was pleased to see, had a small smile on her face, although she continued to scribble away on her parchment with her mangled quill.

While Al muttered a half-hearted apology and the girl cast a dark look around the room to all those who found the scene amusing, Scorpius noted that she'd started chewing her quill again.

He hauled himself off the floor, ignoring Ian's exaggeratedly proffered hand. Scorpius sat down next to Rose, earning himself several surprised looks from his housemates.

"Why are you using a quill bigger than your arm?" he questioned.

"It's my Mum's."

He found it difficult to imagine Al's stern Aunt using the colourful quill while signing documents in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.

"Really?" he said dubiously.

She looked up briefly and smiled. "Well no," she admitted. "Not really. It belonged to a DADA Professor my mother used to fancy when she was at Hogwarts. I found it lying around in the attic."

Scorpius tried to imagine Mrs. Weasley as a love-struck young girl and failed miserably. Rose looked at him with understanding brown eyes. "It's so difficult to imagine, isn't it? That our parents were also young once."

"You better not let my Mum hear you say that. Last week, Dad told her that her new bright yellow robes were 'too youthful'."

"And?"

"Mr. Burke of Burke's Jewellery is now considerably richer."

She laughed at that and Scorpius felt like joining her even though he'd already told the story too many times for it to be funny for him anymore. She had a lovely laugh, he noticed. It wasn't an irritating giggle or harsh cacophony or even a grating, irritating chuckle. It was just... perfect.

"So why are you using it? Are you in love with a Professor?"

"Hardly. The only male teachers around are Professor Longbottom, who's almost my uncle, Professor Slughorn, who's so old and fat that I doubt he can see his toes anymore, Professor Binns, who's dead, Professor... Oh for Merlin's sake, Scorpius!"

He had grabbed her sleeve and pulled her close, so that he could whisper in her ear, even though they were sitting on opposite ends of the table.

"It's definitely Binns, then, he sounds like the pick of that pack," he said in a stage-whisper. "But you know, I think that relationship's against the rules."

He smelt like the cinnamon rug freshening sprays the House Elves used on the carpets in the Gryffindor Common Room and his voice seemed to caress the words 'against the rules' in a way that made them seem more exciting than forbidden. For a second, Rose had an insane urge to just keep her head on his shoulder, which was so invitingly close, just to see what it would feel like.

Then she looked up and saw his smile and the fragile thoughts that she had just built crashed. He was just teasing, of course.

_Of course. _

"Yup," she said brightly, pulling back. "Binns and I are going to walk down the aisle next week. Want to be my maid of honour?"

"I'd be honoured."

Then, the portrait door swung open and his girlfriend entered, chatting with her group of friends. He was already half out of his seat when he turned back and said, "Elsie's here. Talk to you later, Rose?"

"Wasn't her name Eloise?" asked Rose, surprised.

"Oh, right," said Scorpius, with an embarrassed, lop-sided smile that made her heart flip over. "I'm rubbish at remembering names. I keep getting them mixed up. It bugged the hell out of you cousin James when I kept calling him Fred last summer."

As he walked away, Rose suddenly realised that he had never called her by any other name. Her heart turned a cartwheel even as Scorpius kissed Eloise and she returned to her homework.


End file.
